Avicebron 3 days ago

"Markets" exist because they are a thing people find useful. If people can't afford shelter and participate in the "market" of leveraging property because they are being pushed out by a soulless outgrowth of "line go up" thinking, then the "market" has failed and needs to be fixed until it is useful for people again.

  • Manuel_D 3 days ago

    Sure, but if the price of housing is too high then price controls won't fix it either. You'd end up with no availability, or a decades-long waitlist for rent-controlled apartments like Stockholm.

    The issue with housing affordability is that the market is often prevented from responding to high demand and low supply by regulation. SF is very restrictive with permitting housing construction, despite the incredibly high rents. It's not that the market forces are failing to incentivize housing construction, it's that developers are prevented from responding to market demand.

    • Qwertious 3 days ago

      >Sure, but if the price of housing is too high then price controls won't fix it either. You'd end up with no availability

      You're assuming a baseline of a functional market system.

      If you have widespread price-fixing between landlords (say, via everyone using the same algorithm service that gives everyone the same recommendation) then rent control isn't introducing a price fix, it's just changing the level of price fixing.

      If you can only rent for $X000, but the rent price is fixed to at least $X500, then for you, there might as well be no availability - the landlord is leaving the place vacant due to the price-fixing.

      • Manuel_D 3 days ago

        The allegations of rent fixing don't look very credible. RealPage had a single-digit market share in SF when that story was making the rounds, nowhere near enough to effectively fix rates. Furthermore, these cities don't have high vacancy rates. And lastly, cities that banned the use of the software and did not see a subsequent drop in rental prices.

      • WalterBright 3 days ago

        > widespread price-fixing between landlords

        This is called a cartel. The trouble with cartels is enforcing it. Cartel members cheat all the time by selling for less than the cartel price in order to get a larger share of the market. The setup is unstable as the incentives are much like the Prisoner's Dilemma.

  • derektank 3 days ago

    It's not the fault of private capital firms that local governments have essentially outlawed building new homes in many areas. The solution should be focused on restricting the ability of localities to do this, not restricting the ability of companies to buy real estate.

    • xphos 3 days ago

      Yeah I agree with this here. Its simply to hard to build housing and the number permits and zoning restrictions have lead to localized housing shortages where people want to live. Its simply a difficult poltical issue to solve because most of the time zoning is handled at the local level and old people who have houses attend town hall meetings where zoning is discussed (if seldomly ever). Homeowners who have treated housing as a speculative centeralized asset have little to gain in allowing the market fixing itself.

    • Qwertious 3 days ago

      It kind of is, though. The political economy is a thing, lots of companies lobby for favourable legislation.

    • Avicebron 3 days ago

      > It's not the fault of private capital firms

      Which doesn't really matter because they don't need to be "protected" in any capacity. Removing their ability to purchase those homes, and letting it get sorted between the people who are "outlawing building homes" and those who want to move there makes more sense.

      • WalterBright 3 days ago

        Deciding who gets to buy what is known as central economic planning. It doesn't have a good track record.

        In this case, by restricting who can buy, you're reducing the demand for housing. Less demand means lower prices. Lower prices mean fewer homes will be built, meaning less supply.

        A better scheme would be to lower the costs of home construction by reducing regulations and taxes on them.

  • kyboren 3 days ago

    Hallelujah. Shout it from the rooftops!

    Markets are powerful tools--perhaps the most powerful tool we have to shape human interactions. But too many people believe in a sort of market gospel ("Supply Side Jesus"); that market forces are as inevitable and inflexible as the force of gravity. In reality, policy choices shape markets and careful market design can deliver politically-favorable outcomes.

    Markets work for us, not the other way around. "You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!"

    • WalterBright 3 days ago

      The government constantly tries to repeal the Law of Supply & Demand. That never works.

anigbrowl 3 days ago

“Ground rents are a species of revenue which the owner, in many cases, enjoys without any care or attention of his own. Ground rents are, therefore, perhaps a species of revenue which best bear to have a particular tax imposed upon them.”

“As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed and demand a rent even for its natural produce.”

“A tax upon ground-rents would not raise the rents of houses. It would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent, who acts always as a monopolist, and exacts the greatest rent which can be got for the use of his ground.”

“The sea in the neighbourhood of the islands of Shetland is more than commonly abundant in fish, which make a great part of the subsistence of the inhabitants. But in order to profit by the produce of the water, they must have a habitation upon the neighbouring land. The rent of the landlord is in proportion, not to what he can make by the land, but to what he can make both by the land and water. It is partly paid in sea-fish.”

Karl MArx? No, Adam Smith.

zefhous 3 days ago

How one defines “distorting markets” is an important question when it comes to defining policy, and not an un-contentious one.

dymk 3 days ago

Well, what we have right now obviously isn’t working. So what’s your proposal?

  • WalterBright 3 days ago

    Return to free markets in housing.

    • anigbrowl 3 days ago

      Got anything more specific than cliches? For example, do you have any examples of this demonstrably making housing more affordable (ie lowering housing costs as a percentage of income) at scale?

      • WalterBright 3 days ago

        Rent control making creating more rental units unprofitable. Zoning laws that prevent housing density.

hooverd 3 days ago

rent control is good actually combined with robust building

thrance 3 days ago

So basically remove all regulations and everything will fix itself automatically? This kind of wishful thinking is ludicrous, and it's insane how common it is. Markets have issues that need to be addressed through regulations, unless we want a return to the Gilded Age.

  • WalterBright 3 days ago

    > So basically remove all regulations and everything will fix itself automatically?

    I didn't say that. I said "rent control". And yes, remove all regulations on rent.

    > unless we want a return to the Gilded Age

    The Gilded Age was a time of great prosperity in the US.

    • dragonwriter 3 days ago

      > The Gilded Age was a time of great prosperity in the US.

      In aggregate, sure. (At least compared to times prior.)

      How the prosperity was distributed, OTOH...

      • WalterBright 3 days ago

        Wealth isn't "distributed" in a free market. People work and invest to get money in exchange.

        Consider Jeff Bezos. He was roundly criticized for the profligacy of spending $80 million for his wedding. But look at it another way. He spread the wealth around by paying artisans, workers, craftsmen, photographers, travel agents, hotels, restaurateurs, etc.

    • burnt-resistor 3 days ago

      > The Gilded Age was a time of great prosperity in the US.

      No, wrong. Totally wrong. It was a time of immense inequality.

      Oddly enough, these days are even worse than then in terms of income and wealth ratios, but different in absolute effects of penury.

    • thrance 3 days ago

      > The Gilded Age was a time of great prosperity in the US.

      Oh ok, so you have a totally wrong understanding of history. Neoliberalism's strongest solider, I see.

      You do realize that the average American back then was working insanely long hours -when there was work at all- for meager wages, in horrendous conditions? Perhaps that's what you want to do with your life? Not me.

      > remove all regulations on rent.

      How would removing all regulations on rent improve this situation? You'd just make landlords even more powerful than they already are. What would prevent them from charging as much as they can get away with, ensuring their tenants remain poor forever? They are knowns to collectively price gouge.